Rochor Centre
| groundbreaking_date = | start_date = | completion_date =built 1977 | opened_date = | inauguration_date = | demolition_date = | destruction_date = | architect = | owner = Housing Development Board | cost = | floor_area = | top_floor = | floor_count = | awards = | ren_awards = | parking = | url = | embedded = | references = | map_type = | map_alt = | map_caption = | altitude = | building_type = | architectural_style = | structural_system = | ren_cost = | client = | renovation_date = | height = | architectural = | roof = | architecture_firm = | structural_engineer = | services_engineer = | civil_engineer = | other_designers = | quantity_surveyor = | main_contractor = | designations = | ren_architect = | ren_firm = | ren_str_engineer = | ren_serv_engineer = | ren_civ_engineer = | ren_oth_designers = | ren_qty_surveyor = }} Rochor Centre was a building in Singapore built by the Housing and Development Board. It was built and completed in 1977. Rochor Centre is bound by Rochor and Ophir Roads and Queen Street in the south of Singapore, just outside of the Central Business District. There are total of 4 blocks (Blocks 1 through 4). The first three floors consist of shophouses and offices. The fourth floor is a void deck, and residents stay from the fifth floor onwards. The top floor is level 17. Rochor Centre has over 180 shops that sell a wide variety of goods. History The flats at Rochor Centre began like any other flats elsewhere in Singapore, with the normal all-white appearances. It was not until 1994 when they became the iconic buildings of the Rochor area after given the painting of the four vibrant colours in an upgrading program, together with the installation of lifts. For the past decades, the brightly coloured flats have become an iconic landmark at Rochor area, bounded by Sungei Rochor, Bugis Village and Sim Lim Square. It is also the carpark near to the Waterloo Street and Sim Lim Square. In the seventies and eighties, residents of the Rochor flats had to put up with a strong stench due to the night soil deposit centre opposite of the flats. The night soil system walked into history in 1987, and the site had been redeveloped into Albert Complex. The residents also faced another awkward scene in the late eighties, when the transvestites from the old Bugis Street, shut down in 1985, began frequenting around the Rochor Centre to pose with tourists for photos. Some of the shops and offices have been operating here since the first day of the opening of Rochor Centre, including the Hokkien association Sin Chew Hu Chi Sia. One of its honorary chairman was Ho Pao Jen 何葆仁 (1895-1978), a Chinese banker and principal of The Chinese High School between 1925 and 1928, who was actively involved in the anti-Japanese resistance during the Second World War. Previously, there was also an old folks’ home at the Rochor Centre. Officially opened by Deputy Prime Minister Dr Toh Chin Chye in 1977, it was called the Rochore Kongsi Home for the Aged, and was set up to provide a clean shelter and a happy and healthy living for the destitute elderly in the Rochor area, when in the seventies many were found sleeping at the public staircases and corridors. Due to the pending closure of Rochor Centre, the last batch of elderly was relocated to other old folks’ home by mid-2015. Others were former shopowners at Blanco Court. They had shifted to Rochor Centre when Blanco Court was acquired in 1997 to become Raffles Hospital. Demolition However, in 15 November 2011, it was announced that the Rochor centre would be acquired by the government to make way for the new 21.5 km North-South Expressway (NSE). This North-South Expressway will become Singapore’s 11th expressway and connects the northern parts of the island with the East Coast Parkway (ECP) when it is completed in 2023. As a result, it will reduce the burden off the congested Central Expressway, Singapore (CTE) and benefit all those living in the East and North of Singapore by cutting down the rush hour journeys by up to 30%. As of December 2016, 533 out of 567 households who were living in Rochor Centre had all moved out since the completion in March 2015. The HDB blocks started construction in April 2012 at Kallang Trivista. They had accepted our apartments at the Kallang Trivista complex. As a result, residents moved to Kallang Trivista, with the exception of some residents moving to Tampines, an HDB estate located at Upper Boon Keng Road by end October 2016. The Victoria Street Wholesale Centre was torn down and moved to Kallang. All the households were moved out by February 2017. The carpark at the Rochor Centre was closed permanently from 1 April 2017, and the entire building is barricaded. Demolition began on 15 July 2017 and was completed on 21 July 2017. References